Samsung and Native Call Recording feature

Forums › Mobile handsets › Samsung and Native Call Recording feature - Blocked in NZ

BlakJak

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#318662 9-Feb-2025 19:18

I recently had to replace my cellphone and only requiring something fairly middle-of-the-road I picked up a Samsung Galaxy A25 5G (SM-A256E/DSN)

The Service Provider Software Version is, for the record, SAOMC_SM-A256E_OLM_XNZ_14_0008 XNZ/XNZ, XNZ/XNZ

My previous phone - not a Samsung - the Google 'Calls' app had the record function enabled as a native feature.
Samsung apparently limit the availability of features based on country/jurisdiction.

I found a fairly informative YouTube video and i'm interested to know if anyone else has done this and experienced any negative knock-on effects (or has any reckons on why this feature would be blocked in NZ, which allows one-party call recording permissions.).

Also relevant search hits: reddit thread and airdroid post listing NZ as having this feature strictly prohibited (whyyyyy) and this thread in r/newzealand shows i'm not the first to chase it up.

I do not use the Samsung app store and have no intention of using it (no registered Samsung account). (also the link to the Samsung App store doesn't work.)

Using third party apps always feels dodgy so i'd much rather just have the native functionality back :(

No signature to see here, move along...

Hiamie

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#3340843 9-Feb-2025 21:01

To record normal phone calls, I use Call Recorder ver 1.06 from the Galaxy store by Ngoc Bui.You must download the Galaxy Store version!

Originally I was only ever able to record one side of any phone call, then read somewhere that call recording apps for Samsung must be downloaded from the Galaxy store, and not from the usual playstore.

It seems that Galaxy Store copies are changed in some way, and, for me that was the answer. I downloaded from the Galaxy Store and no problems recording phone calls since..

I am using an S20 purchased from Noel Lemmings

Good luck

boosacnoodle

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#3340845 9-Feb-2025 21:03

It’s available on iOS, for what it’s worth, so surely not prohibited.

LostBoyNZ

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#3340917 10-Feb-2025 10:10

I noticed on my S25 that Samsung have a built in phone recorder now. You can press a record icon during a call, so it's not automatic, and it waits 3 seconds then informs the other person that the call is being recorded. That phone was purchased from the Samsung NZ store.

But from memory the Call Recorder app from the Galaxy Store doesn't inform them, and is automatic :)

richms

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#3341072 10-Feb-2025 12:42

The inbuilt ones on the google dialer are useless as it keeps beeping which is not a requirement here. I still hang on to my out of support xiaomi that has working native call recording in its own dialer. The newer ones have all moved to the google dialer as that was forced onto them by google for things outside the chinese market, and I dont want to go putting boged firmwares onto my newer one as so much stuff will break with that.

Really needs that google monopoly looked at if they are preventing phone manufactures from providing their own better alternatives to the google software.

Richard rich.ms

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#3341076 10-Feb-2025 12:53

I used a 3rd party app last year for a bit, on Samsung A72, never had any issues with it and it did the job well. Was automatic, no beeps, notifications etc to the other party.

IIRC I just got on screen ads when I went into the app itself.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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jonathan18

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#3345231 21-Feb-2025 11:39

I ended up looking for a recording solution on my S24U; first of all I tried an app recommended above (Call Recorder) but found it ad-heavy and didn’t like its UI.

Next tried Cube ACR (also via the Galaxy Store) and it seems to work well. Key benefit for me is that it’s easy to set up to manually select which calls to record - I have no interest in it recording all calls, but this app pops up a little widget when in a call, easily allowing the user to record the specific call.

It’ll be interesting to see if One UI 7, when it comes to earlier phones, allows recording as per the report above of the S25.

gehenna

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#3345234 21-Feb-2025 11:49

The fact anyone would use a free call recorder with ads, which is 99.999% likely to be scraping the calls, is mind boggling.